Filming of Robin Hood: Origins starts on Monday and the final touches are being made to one of the main sets in Dubrovnik. The producer and director of the latest Hollywood blockbuster to be filmed in Dubrovnik held a press conference today in the Hotel Argentina and expressed their satisfaction on filming in the city.

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the executive producers of Robin Hood and when asked if he would visit the city Otto Bathurst, the director, replied that “Leonardo is very busy but if he were to visit any of the film sets it would surely be Dubrovnik, who knows maybe you will have a pleasant surprise.”

After Game of Thrones, Robin Hood and Star Wars you might have thought that a zombie film was being shot in Dubrovnik today. Was it a new series of the Walking Dead or American Zombie being filmed in the historic Old City?

Well, of course, the answer is no. This is what happens to you if you are working on the Robin Hood set in Dubrovnik and someone goes mad with the grinder into the plaster construction. And work is going full steam ahead, filming starts on Monday and still one of the main sets on the Stradun hasn’t been completed.

Over forty new or fully renovated hotels will be opened in Croatia before the beginning of the main tourist season, commented the Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli as he toured the construction works in the Hotel Excelsior today. He added that over 800 million Euros of investment have poured into the Croatia tourism industry this year.

The Hotel Excelsior, which is part of the Adriatic Luxury Hotels group, is currently undergoing a massive investment and a total reconstruction. This five-star hotel is iconic in the city and was in need of refreshment as the last time any major works were carried out was back in 2008. The Minister of Tourism toured the building works today with the Prefect of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Nikola Dobroslavic.

Since the beginning of this year until the middle of February over 22,500 tourists have visited the Dubrovnik-Neretva County which is a 31 percent increase over the same period from last year. Whilst on a country wide scale more around 732,000 tourists visited over the same period, this time an increase of 14 percent.

All the working week the weather had been a mixture of blue skies and sunshine, but then the weekend arrives and the heavens open. If you were planning on enjoying this Dubrovnik weekend in the open air you might want to take an umbrella with you.

The forecast for all weekend is for overcast, grey skies and rain, with the occasional torrential downpour. Rain has already been falling in Dubrovnik since midday today and temperatures today will reach highs of 11 degrees. Sunday will see similar rainy skies and light showers, highs tomorrow will hit 13 degrees.

And as if the weather knew the weekend was over Monday and most of the rest of next week will again be clear and warm with highs on Thursday up to 17 degrees.

A Chinese multinational automotive manufacturing company and owner of the taxi service in London has hired Lipik Glas to supply windscreens for the new electric-powered and TX5 electric hybrid London black cabs.

Lipik Glas, one of the biggest automotive industry suppliers in Croatia, won the contract to produce windscreens for The London Taxi Company, a manufacturer of the famous London black taxis.

Danijel Zadjelovic, the director of the Lipik Glas company did not hide his satisfaction with the company’s new engagement, ‘’This deal is very important for us because this is a very large quantity. The planned level of production is up to 7,000 taxis annually, which will account for 10 percent of our income in the future”. He also added that apart from 205 employees, the company employed 30 more people in the past few weeks and was planning to invest 30 million Kunas in new machinery and production plants in the next two years.

It is interesting to note that the Croatian company already produced glass for the Aston Martin DB10 which was driven by James Bond in the film Spectre.

“Dubrovnik is a vital part of Robin Hood: Origins and in the final version the whole city will be visible,” commented Otto Bathurst, the director of the latest Hollywood blockbuster movie to be filmed in the city. This will be the largest film production ever made in Dubrovnik and at a press conference today Bathurst and E. Bennett Walsh, the producer, presented their visions for the upcoming movie.

Filming begins on Monday the 20th of February and will last until the 6th of March.

“This set in the old harbour of Dubrovnik will be the first scene that Robin Hood and Little John will be seen together,” commented Walsh. All of the actors in Robin Hood have arrived in Dubrovnik, Jamie Foxx who plays Little John, Taron Egeron as Robin Hood, Eve Hewson who plays Maid Marion, Ben Mendelsohn or the Sheriff of Nottingham and Northern Irish heartthrob and star of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy Jamie Dornan.

The Croatian Minister of Tourism, Gari Cappelli, and the Minister of Culture, Nina Obuljen Koržinek, also attended the press conference and jointly expressed their satisfaction that Dubrovnik will once again star on the silver screen.

This latest version of Robin Hood will be an action-adventure packed with gritty battles, romance and spectacular fight scenes.

When asked if Dubrovnik will be visible in the final cut Bathurst answered that Dubrovnik was the exact set and location that he had been dreaming off. “Although it might seem strange I spent months looking for a location in England but couldn’t find one. Dubrovnik is perfect. In the final film the city will certainly be visible; we will just have to delete some of the air-conditioning units and satellite dishes,” concluded Bathurst.

The world's greatest car website Top Gear has reported that Aston Martin, the luxury British sports car manufacturer, have announced that the Croatian company Rimac Automobili will deliver the battery set for their model AM-RB 001.

Aston Martin has been developing the hyper car in cooperation with Red Bull Racing and according to a design of the legendary F1 racing car constructor Adrian Newey. AM-RB 001 should be the world's most extreme car ever seen on the roads with performance that will compete to those of F1 racing cars.

The British high-performance engine company Cosworth will deliver the engine for the AM-RB 001 model: a 6.5-litre, naturally aspirated V12. Aston Martin says it will be the ultimate road-legal internal combustion engine.

In addition, the car will use a seven-speed paddle shift gearbox designed and built by Ricardo, the British engineering and consultancy firm, who previously created the six-speed manual gearbox of the Ford GT, and is currently the supplier of McLaren’s 3.8-litre bi-turbo V8 engine.

The Croatian company Rimac Automobili will develop and deliver the lightweight battery system for the 001; apart from the conventional engine, this hybrid will use several electric engines.

Furthermore, the carbon fibre company Multimatic from Canada will manufacture chassis for the hyper car, whilst the race car braking system experts from Alcon will deliver the car brakes for Aston's maddest car ever.

It is interesting to note that after the Swedish car manufacturer Koenigsegg, Aston Martin is the second super sports car manufacturer who has used the knowledge and skills of Rimac Automobili.

Jamie Foxx has arrived in Dubrovnik! Robin Hood: Origins starts filming in Dubrovnik on Monday and the stars and productions crew are arriving in the city. This afternoon on a private plane the Oscar award winning actor Jamie Foxx arrived along with one of the executive producers E. Bennett Walsh.

Foxx looked relaxed in sunglasses and a navy-style jacket and although he was happy to have his photo taken politely declined to answer any questions. Filming of the latest Robin Hood movie began in Hungary and Foxx, who stars as Little John, claimed that “this is one of my most challenging roles to date.”

Jamie Foxx arrives in Dubrovnik - Photo Tonci Plazibat

Heartthrob and star of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, Jamie Dornan, is expected to arrive in Dubrovnik later today on another private jet. Dornan will star as Will Scarlet alongside Taron Egerton as Robin Hood and Eve Hewson as Maid Marion.

Filming of this Leonardo DiCaprio produced blockbuster begins on the 20th of February and lasts until the 6th of March. Several locations inside the historic city centre of Dubrovnik have already been transformed into medieval Nottingham. The set on the main street through the centre of the city is nearing completion and has joined both sides of this iconic street.

According to a recent survey, almost 77 percent of respondents are willing to leave Croatia in a search of a new job and a brighter future.

More than half of respondents would leave the country in order to find work in their profession, whilst 43 percent of people would accept any job.

The survey carried out by the MojPosao portal encompassed eleven European countries (Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) and included 35,000 respondents.

Furthermore, the survey showed that a great majority of respondents from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia are more willing to accept any kind of job than respondents from other countries are.

In general, more men (81%) are willing to go abroad than women (73%), as are respondents of 25 years of age and younger. Almost 80 percent of young population are ready to leave Croatia, whilst 79 percent of population aged 25 to 34 would follow their path. Respondents older than 55 years (58%) are not willing to search for a job outside Croatia's borders.

The main incentive for relocation to 69 percent of Croatian respondents is a higher salary, whilst 38 percent would seek possibilities for better career development.

In addition, the survey also shows that the great majority of people in Croatia would go abroad for a period longer than one year; a fifth of respondents would leave the country for several months, whilst the rest of respondents would go abroad only for a few weeks' time.

Last year the portal MojPosao published more than 1,100 ads for jobs abroad, or 14 percent more ads compared to the previous year. Most ads were for jobs in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia.

The most in-demand professions abroad are electricians, IT developers and electrical workers for jobs in the field of installation, maintenance and repairs, production, craft services and electrical engineering.

It had to happen, after the countless bare male behinds that have appeared on social media with Dubrovnik as a background now we have the first female one. This rather unusual new craze of baring backsides whilst travelling and then revealing them to the world via social media caught on last summer and from the signs are that this summer could see more cheeky photos this year.

This latest and first Dubrovnik female, photo soon went viral on Instagram and was published on the account of Flash The Abyss, who uses the tagline “A photographic journey dedicated to removing boundaries between woman and... whatever she chooses.” She has over 11,000 followers on Instagram and this “bottoms up” in Dubrovnik photo has almost 700 likes.